Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 4

Letter ID: 990

Sri Aurobindo — Roy, Dilip Kumar

March 11, 1944

Pratibha (la cousine des quatre sceurs [the four sisters’ cousin]) told me of two experiences as she is very eager to know what they mean. I add my eagerness thereto as such experiences are rare. I will tell you briefly as I understand you are too busy now-a-days.

A) The first remarkable experience was on 24th November last – a darshan day. She was feeling rather sad when she saw, as she was sitting near the staircase (at about 2 p.m.):

(1) Yourself in a lovely moonlight with a self-luminous blue scarf. You looked the essence of magic, she says.

Blue is the normal colour of the spiritual plane; moonlight indicates the spiritual mind and its light.

(2) Mother in a powerful sunlight on a lion – her jagaddhatrT aspect, I infer. She looked so puissant, etc.

It was probably the Durga aspect.

(3) Near you both Krishna on a galloping horse with a flute.

Please write a few words below as to what these mean especially (3). One never pictures Krishna on a horse, does one, and playing flute too on a horse! What an anticlimax!

Well, why should not Krishna ride a horse if he so wants? His actions or habits cannot be fixed by the human mind or by an immutable tradition. Especially Krishna is a law to himself. Perhaps he was in a hurry to get to the place where he wanted to flute.

These visions are not rare or unusual; they are of the usual kind seen commonly by those who have developed the gift of vision. Mostly they take place on the vital plane, though sometimes on the mental and psychic – the vital is freest in its play and it does not at all follow the preconceptions of the physical mind. As for meanings, they vary infinitely; much depends on the character of the vision.

B) The next experience: on the 21st February, as she gazed at you at darshan she saw through you and visioned Kishore Krishna – round about your heart.

Why does she see Krishna in you when she is more partial to Shiva? Now-a-days she is sort of won over by Krishna, she says, but why should Krishna come so repeatedly as she equates you, spontaneously, to Shiva and not to Krishna.

I have said that visions of this kind do not necessarily spring from the physical consciousness or the mind and its preconceptions or preferences. If they did they would have no independent reality.

C) Last Sunday I was singing Raihana’s song on Krishna on moonlight chandini rat [moonlit night] (whose translation I sent you the other day). I felt a deep bhakti and lo, Pratibha saw again Krishna dancing about and playing flute – a lovely youth this time not Kishore Krishna but adult Krishna. Why is it that nobody else saw it?

Why should they? The vision may have been personal to her, but even otherwise for all or many to see is somewhat rare, one might say very rare.

She was in deep ecstasy but still regrets what do these visions import. She has been told that visions are not experiences and as such was telling me, regretfully (fancy, regretting after visioning Krishna and in you too! these things really meant very little in spiritual life. But do tell me. How can these things mean so little? Seeing Krishna and in one’s Guru too. How I have longed for such a darshan!

Visions come from all planes and are of all kinds and different values. Some are of very great value and importance, others are a play of the mind or vital and are good only for their own special purpose, others are formations of the mind and vital plane some of which may have truth, while others are false and misleading, or they may be a sort of artistry of that plane. They can have considerable importance in the development of the first Yogic consciousness, that of the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical or for an occult understanding of the universe. Visions which are real can help the spiritual progress, I mean, those which show us inner realities: one can, for instance, meet Krishna, speak with him and hear his voice in an inner “real” vision, quite as real as anything on the outer plane. Merely seeing his image is not the same thing, any more than seeing his picture on the wall is the same thing as meeting him in person. But the picture on the wall need not be useless for the spiritual life. All one can say is that one must not attach oneself too much to this gift and what it shows us, but neither is it necessary to belittle it. It has its value and sometimes a considerable spiritual utility. But, naturally, it is not supreme – the supreme thing is the realisation, the contact, the union with the Divine, bhakti, change of nature, etc.

I have been working hard. Last night till nearly 2 a.m. I am working at a spiritual novel (voicing my spiritual experience, etc.). I want to do sadhana more consciously through service and as my books are selling progressively better and better I want to offer it all as a concrete sacrifice to you and Mother. Work I am fond of but I want to do it more and more in the right spirit. Do help me here, Guru.